Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of Fiends (PFRPG)

Born of mortal and fiendish blood intertwined, tieflings are tainted individuals thrust
into a world that has learned to both fear and despise them. Whether they openly
display their freakish ancestry in settlements known for their tiefling populations
or hide such shameful attributes through either mundane or magical methods, all
tieflings know that they are different.

Blood of Fiends presents a player-friendly overview of the tieflings of the
Pathfinder campaign setting, as well as new rules and information to help
players customize their own fiendish characters.

Inside this book, you’ll find:

Detailed information on the origins, physiology, traditions, social
interactions, and beliefs of tieflings—the accursed descendants of
mortals and fiends.

A table of 100 variant tiefling abilities to further customize your
fiendish characters.

An expansive look at the 10 most common types of tiefling heritages,
each of which provides tiefling characters with alternate ability score
modifiers, skills, and spell-like abilities.

New feats for battle-hardened tiefling characters.

New curses and inquisitions for fiendish oracles and inquisitors.

New subdomains for tiefling clerics, each reflective of a different
fiendish realm.

New masterpieces for tiefling bards and a bloodline for daemontainted
sorcerers.

Dozens of new traits to flesh out your tormented character and
bodily features to help distinguish your tiefling.

This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but can easily be incorporated into
any fantasy world.

Written by Hal Maclean and Colin McComb

Each bimonthly 32-page Pathfinder Player Companion contains several player-focused articles exploring the volume’s theme as well as short articles with innovative new rules for social, magic, religious, and combat-focused characters, as well as traits to better anchor the player to the campaign.

And dumb question #2: do any of these tieflings look at all like beast-folk? I've been wondering about the daemon-spawn and rakshasa-spawn.

I've been hoping for animal-headed tieflings (rakshasa-spawn) *and* aasimar (agathion-spawn) from these books.

The thought of an ancient Osirioni culture that had animal-headed planetouched in positions of authority, considered as intercessors with the gods whom their parents served (even if not always, with some cheerfully taking advantage of that assumption...), appeals to me.

The pic of the Rakshasa-spawn Tiefling looks like a tiger based female Catfolk with red eyes. But with being said you can decide how you want the Tiefling to look based on any fiend in that subtype of Tiefling.

Also what domains do the 3 new subdomains belong to? I'm guessing Tyranny is either law or evil (or maybe both! ^-^) but entropy and fear I'm a little less sure on without going back over my domains list. I know i'm hoping for more alignment subdomains that aren't related directly to outsiders.

Awesome! Again so happy to see subdomains for the alignment domains that don't have anything to do with outsiders makes it easier to make gods of varied alignments and make those alignments mean more then "ohh this is the outsider that is closest to their alignment". Case and point i don't think that most successful NE gods would necessarily want to be directly associated with Daemons and their goals lest they lose followers but an evil god who extols the powers of fear, that i can see picking up followers and helping flesh out the god in general.

I had one in one of my prior games and he ended up looking something like skullmaster from mighty max which i felt was kind of appropriate (also can't go wrong with tim curry). From what people said earlier they look something like nosferatu which I can get behind as well.

Awesome! Again so happy to see subdomains for the alignment domains that don't have anything to do with outsiders makes it easier to make gods of varied alignments and make those alignments mean more then "ohh this is the outsider that is closest to their alignment".

I am not sure what you are saying here...

But the first line of the subdomains...

The following subdomains grant powers to those divine spellcasters whose power comes from patrons of Abaddon, the Abyss, or Hell.

Awesome! Again so happy to see subdomains for the alignment domains that don't have anything to do with outsiders makes it easier to make gods of varied alignments and make those alignments mean more then "ohh this is the outsider that is closest to their alignment".

I am not sure what you are saying here...

I *think* he's saying that a cleric of Urgathoa might have zero interest in taking the 'daemon' domain, since she's not that strongly associated with daemons, and a cleric of Rovagug or Zon-Kuthon (or CE or LE cleric of Gorum or Irori) might have no interest in demons or devils, or a sub-domain tied to them.

What Set said. I like that we are getting more subdomains for the alignment domains that are not based on the associated outsiders. Don't get me wrong I like that we have them but i think that the domain of evil, law, chaos, etc. have more to them then the outsiders that are associated with them and subdomains are a perfect way to represent that.

I *think* he's saying that a cleric of Urgathoa might have zero interest in taking the 'daemon' domain, since she's not that strongly associated with daemons, and a cleric of Rovagug or Zon-Kuthon (or CE or LE cleric of Gorum or Irori) might have no interest in demons or devils, or a sub-domain tied to them.

(That being said, a Kyton sub-domain, for Kuthites, could be funky!)

Another example is Zon-Kuthon I never really associate him with devils since much of his backstory and modus aperindi has nothing to do with them so the devil subdomain doesn't make much sense to me. But Fear, fear makes perfect sense for Kuthon and his followers to have as a subdomain maybe even a favored one as he is a god of envy, pain, and loss. Another could be Norgorber since i never really see him as caring about daemons save for the knowledge they acquire but i can see his followers as both respecting lauding fear as a tool to gain knowledge and make changes in the world subtly. Make more sense?

Also with you set would love to see a Kyton subdomain, maybe even a qlippoth or asura just to see how they play out ^-^.

Would anyone be willing to spoil the BASICS of the Daemon Sorcerer Bloodline? I'm not asking for full text just a basic summary blurb. I am currently making a daemon-spawn sorcerer for a game and I would like to know if this will be a worthwhile choice for me or if I can wait to get the book later down the road.

I really like that it was left open on whether many tieflings went evil because of their blood or because of society's treatment and expectations of them.(I lean hard towards the latter, so I'm glad it was kept open as an option).

And it really does look like there's a lot of support for heroic tieflings. (and non-heroic non-evil tieflings that lead mundane lives) :) This is what I wish the orcs book had been.

Sarenraen tiefling is one of my new favorite pieces of Pathfinder art.

Not just the Motherless. Would not ANY mosterous appearing character need that?

That is true. But when you compare "I have horns and pointy teeth" with "I look like something that H.R. Geiger refused to paint because it was too weird", well...

If a motherless is anything like a Qlippoth, I can definitely see a motherless inquisitor that attempts to grasp the concept that you can combat demons without having to kill innocents before they sin. As for what deity the Motherless would fight for... that's a good question.

@Joseph
Thanks for that. I honestly wish they'd say US/Western rather than US/Eastern then. Not that its a huge issue, just kind of annoying. Was hoping to have it downloaded before the brunt of my work hours started.

So! Question! This book makes no mention of the Fiendish Heritage feat from bastards of Erebus. In fact, it seems to imply that Fiendish heritage isn't needed. the only thing it mentions is:
"A player may choose one of the following 10 heritages for her tiefling character in place of the traditional tiefling racial features."

Thanks for that. I honestly wish they'd say US/Western rather than US/Eastern then. Not that its a huge issue, just kind of annoying. Was hoping to have it downloaded before the brunt of my work hours started.

It used to say 3 am us/eastern (or in my case 8am/GMT) but hasn't been for a bit.

Yeah, I know about the Alu-Fiend from ToHC. I was hoping for something a bit more reasonable to lay out in front of the DM. Alas, back to homebrew...

Well... wait until you see the demon-spawn tiefling first! She DOES happen to look kind of succubusy...

Oh, I'll still buy the book because I'm a sucker for all things fiendish (quippoth and kyton heritages, bonus). Also new art and more fluff, always good.

Well, I have the book now and I have to admit that the Pitborn illustration does indeed look succubusy. It's a pity that the rest of the entry describes an Orc.

Ok, I'm trying to be funny but I'm afraid that'll read a bit snarky. To undercut that, I have to say the illustration quality in this book is awesome and I'm hoping the portrait of the Pitborn winds up being usable on these forums as an avatar pic because it's great. Lots of nice, thematic, Feats and Traits and other things, the only thing that jumps out at me as a bit of a derp moment was the handling of Fiendish Sorcery. Easy to houserule that, though.

But I get it, the Pitborn's a DM tool to create low level threats for a Worldwound based campaign, not really for PCs. Unless, you know, you want to be an Eldrich Knight on 'roids.

Thanks for that. I honestly wish they'd say US/Western rather than US/Eastern then. Not that its a huge issue, just kind of annoying. Was hoping to have it downloaded before the brunt of my work hours started.

It used to say 3 am us/eastern (or in my case 8am/GMT) but hasn't been for a bit.

We don't show specific times for PDFs to become available, just days, which are adjusted to your time zone. So if you had looked at 11:59 PM EST, you'd see "Available tomorrow," which would be correct for you, and if you looked two minutes later, you'd see "Available today," which would also be correct for you. At that very same moment, people on Central Time would still see "Available tomorrow," because that's what's true for them.

I think one of my players will love this. He is thinking of running a tiefling. Though a lot is in the Council of Thieves AP he owns he'll love the additional traits and feats. As well as the alternate abilities based on tiefling type

But I get it, the Pitborn's a DM tool to create low level threats for a Worldwound based campaign, not really for PCs. Unless, you know, you want to be an Eldrich Knight on 'roids.

This really shouldn't be the case for Player's Companion material.

Looking at the specific heritage write-ups as very generalized gloss-overs helps a bit, something others might expecct of your tiefling at a glance rather than specific details you have to shackle to your character.

what is the chance of tiefling twins being born where both tieflings are a separate type of tieflings? Such as the father is cheliax with a devil tainted bloodline and the mother is a Vudrani with Rakasha tainted bloodline.

I take it the kitty tiefling would be treated better that the devil girl correct???

But I get it, the Pitborn's a DM tool to create low level threats for a Worldwound based campaign, not really for PCs. Unless, you know, you want to be an Eldrich Knight on 'roids.

This really shouldn't be the case for Player's Companion material.

Looking at the specific heritage write-ups as very generalized gloss-overs helps a bit, something others might expecct of your tiefling at a glance rather than specific details you have to shackle to your character.

I don't have a problem with it, really. Looking back at Bastards of Erebus, you can see it was always the plan and that's not a bad thing.

And yes, I get playing against type and all that and the book does do a good job of saying 'they're usually evil but there's room for your good PC'. I'd be happy to discuss my problem with the Pitborn elsewhere but really it has nothing to do with Blood of Fiends, which is a good book.

James Jacobs wrote:

As with all the tiefling variants, pitborn included... these tieflings do not HAVE to be evil.

And some campaigns allow evil PCs anyway.

I would love to find one of these mythical beasts, I've never seen one IRL and I've been playing since 1e.

James Jacobs wrote:

That said... while all of these variant tieflings do grant players new options, they absolutely do grant GMs options as well. That's a strength, not a flaw.

I agree.

James Jacobs wrote:

As for pitborn tieflings being able to benefit "more" than others if they're sorcerers due to their Charisma bonus... I don't have a problem with that, honestly.

Oh, that's balanced out by their 1 net base skill point per level. And hopefully all their Str buffs will encourage them to get into hand to hand and discover almost everything is better than they are at hand to hand... though I'm sure there are builds with Transformation that can mitigate that too.

Fiendish Sorcery: Tiefling sorcerers with the Abyssal or Infernal bloodlines treat their Charisma scores as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities.

There is no indication in the book that this effect only applies to 'mongrel' tieflings, or those who stem from the 'appropriate' fiend type.

So, by RAW, neither a Beastbrood nor a Grimspawn would have any problems in getting this bonus when claiming an Infernal Bloodline (after all, it has been a long tradition that pretty much any sorcerer can be of any bloodline)... while, for getting this trait to work with his defining parental bloodline, the Beastbrood has to take the Improved Fiendish Sorcery Feat. The Grimspawn is out of luck altogether.

Umm... huh? Can anyone help me with this type of logic? Am I the only one who thinks that for those 'pure-blooded' Tieflings, their heritage Bloodline would be the one they are most closely tied to?